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Guest Opinion: DeVos threatens public education Monday Jan 30, 2017 at 12:01 AM By Betty R. Kazmin The Indivisible movement, featured on your front page Jan. 25, raises public awareness of serious flaws in President Trump's nominees for Cabinet posts. As a lifelong supporter of public schools, I am concerned by his selection of Betsy DeVos as secretary of education. At a press conference in Portland on Friday, Sen. Jeff Merkley said, “Betsy DeVos did not go to a public school. She did not send her children to a public school. She did not study education in order to teach in a public school. "I don’t know if she’s ever set foot inside a public school,” he said. “That makes her tremendously unqualified to be secretary of education." A Wall Street Journal editorial Jan. 14 is headed "Who's Afraid of Betsy DeVos?" and suggests she is being unfairly targeted by Democrats. It claims "she has committed the unpardonable sin of devoting much of her fortune to helping poor kids escape failing public schools" as teachers unions "have fought to keep them open." I believe that anyone who has known success in public schools — as I have as a student, parent and teacher — should be afraid of Betsy DeVos heading the Department of Education. DeVos seems to consider public schools as failed institutions. I look at my own family, only two generations removed from European immigrants coming to America with little education or money. Yet their children received excellent educations in public schools in Cleveland and Los Angeles. Nearly 90 years after my father graduated from Los Angeles High School and worked his way through UCLA, my grandchildren are flourishing in their local public schools. This story is repeated in families all over America. Children with "privileged status" tend to thrive in schools. But "privilege" is not defined by income or ethnicity or geography. Rather, it is a stable family life with parents who value education (even if they themselves did not have much of it), provide steady discipline and nurture their children's achievements. If you create policies that remove these families from our public schools and send them to private ones, is it fair to label the schools left behind as failures ? I was fortunate to teach algebra in Los Angeles' first magnet school during the 1990s. Our students applied, were selected solely by lottery, and were bused in from all over the vast L.A. school district. The public magnet school's name defines its purpose: LA Center for Enriched Studies, or LACES. Our students, ranging from grades seven to 12, were diverse in ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Students brought a wide variety of backgrounds, skills and talents. Some struggled with basic math and English language arts, many excelled in advanced courses. What united them? Their families had exercised choice in finding and applying to the public magnet school. Thus our students were motivated and their parents were supportive of teachers and school programs. There are similar public charter and magnet schools and "regular" public schools across America, the land of opportunity. Good teachers are a crucial feature of successful schools. They must know the subject matter well and present it effectively to children of widely varying interests and aptitudes. They work in crowded classrooms of children exhibiting various behavioral traits. Nobody chooses a career in teaching for the compensation or the prestige. Rather they genuinely want to help educate children. Our public schools face great challenges. You recently reported that Oregon may have to cut funding for teachers and support for colleges due to state budget shortfalls. Teacher shortages are a very real issue nationwide. Education Week notes "research does support the idea that some states are experiencing serious shortages because of high turnover rates and fewer entering teachers." Another challenge is the poverty in many communities. Too often this leads to low achievement for disadvantaged children. Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden intends to vote against DeVos, believing, like Senator Merkley, that she would take taxpayer money away from public schools. "A bedrock principle of America's public educational system is investing public money in schools meant to serve everyone, not siphoning off scarce taxpayer dollars to private or religious education," Wyden says on his website. I don't understand why DeVos has so little regard for our fine public schools and their dedicated teachers. As schools are labeled "failures" and criticized for all of society's ills, and college students undertake burdensome debt to earn a diploma, why would bright young people choose to teach? Without effective teachers and adequate funding, I fear  public schools could soon become an endangered species. — Betty R. Kazmin of Medford taught algebra for 20 years in Los Angeles secondary schools and served on the board of education in Willard, Ohio.